KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Close to 500 Kansas City Royals staff members rely on Beverly Vratny to dress them.
For nearly 30 years, Vratny has worked underneath Kauffman Stadium sewing and ironing away.
VOICE FOR EVERYONE | Share your voice with KSHB 41’s Claire Bradshaw
She is the wardrobe coordinator for the Royals. Vratny handles the uniforms for each staff member like ticket takers, restroom attendants or traffic coordinators.
“I think it's just making sure that everybody's in a uniform and looking sharp,” said Vratny.
Vratny starts ahead of the season to get everyone outfitted and update uniforms where needed. During the season and games, she is on-call for emergency fixes.
“You never know. Accidents happen. There's people that maybe have holes in their pockets or ‘I’ve changed weight, I need a smaller shirt top.’ We never know,” said Vratny.
That applies to the clubhouse. She is ready to patch their pants in a jiffy.
Vratny irons and stitches players' names and patches onto the jerseys each season. This year, the jerseys have slightly smaller lettering on the back and the new QuikTrip sponsor logo on one sleeve.
When KSHB 41 News spoke with Vratny on Tuesday, she was finishing up the jerseys for the season.
“I cross my fingers and hope that the QuikTrip patches stay on all through the year. Otherwise, I might be getting red thread in my sewing machine and start stitching them down, but I think they'll probably stay,” said Vratny.
She has her job down to a science, even having a hand-made tool to help her remember each patch placement by the inch. But for Vratny, it isn’t a science. It is a passion.
“I'm so happy that I can help the team out and have them look sharp as much as possible,” said Vratny.
Vratny will help the visiting teams with sewing needs in a pinch. She also handles the uniform for Sluggerrr by taking two uniforms apart and sewing them together to fit the mascot.
